Letter: Business model is not right for UI

I served as faculty senate president from 1997 to 1998. During that time, I learned much from the Board of Regents' most plain-spoken member. Dr. Clarkson Kelly was a physician, who was worried that the Regents were over aggressively pursing an inappropriate 'business model” for managing the University of Iowa. He feared that the Regents' 'bottom line” mentality would turn UI into the 'Wal-Mart of the Big Ten.”

The recent town hall meeting with Bruce Harreld confirmed Regent Kelly's worst fear. The data he reported made it abundantly clear that we can truly claim to being the 'Wal-Mart of the Big Ten.” Our tuition is the lowest of all Big Ten schools and the lowest of our Association of American University peer institutions.

Cash-strapped Iowa families might take comfort in the apparent value now offered by UI. But, you get what you pay for. Among our AAU competitors, UI has recently experienced the greatest fall in federally funded research support, our decline in the US News & World Report rankings has been exceeded only by the University of Arizona, we rank at the bottom of peer AAU schools in faculty salary, and our faculty resignations are surging.

The present Board of Regents believes its selection of a retired businessman with no experience in higher education administration can somehow reverse this calamitous collapse of Iowa's flagship university. I'm confident that Regent Kelly would never have approved Harreld's appointment; Dr. Kelly was, after all, bound to follow the Hippocratic oath.

Ed Wasserman

Iowa City